Personal Finance

Brace yourself.  ­Energy bills are about to be hit by a double whammy. The big firms are all putting their ­prices up (again) and many of the cheapest deals you can switch to have been pulled. Let me be plain – now is the time to switch before winter. Every week’s delay risks you paying more.

Many employees in Scotland are in the position of earning just over £43,000, but not everyone will know that the tax paid on part of that salary is much greater than someone earning the same amount in other parts of the UK.

Just a few days ago, the Bank of England rejected the opportunity to increase the base rate for the second consecutive month. It was a unanimous decision – perhaps unsurprising, given that it had finally taken the plunge in August and lifted the base rate beyond 0.5 per cent for the first time since March 2009.

Summer’s now over, and sadly there’s little you can do to repair a holiday ruined by flight delay or cancellation (for example, from a strike like Ryanair’s) but many are entitled to up to £550 per person compensation. In fact this applies even for delays as far back as 2012.

Yes, it’s associated with unwarranted and annoying phone calls and a never-ending stream of adverts on TV and radio – but potentially millions of people are entitled to PPI refunds and still haven’t claimed.

Every year, without fail, a story will rear its head about a government “raid” on your pension. Usually close to the Budget, or Autumn (now Spring) Statement, the cunning chancellor of the day is going to hack away at the incentives for saving into a pension, making them far less generous, in order to save billions for the public purse.

Royal Bank of Scotland has been officially ranked Britain’s worst bank by consumers and businesses, according to data released by regulators.

Interest-only mortgages – AKA endowment mortgages – have been in the news and many people have contacted me for help asking what they should do now that their mortgage is due up and they still owe in excess of £100,000.

How confident are you that the pension pot you’re building will give you the sort of lifestyle you want in retirement?

If you are looking to save money, you are rarely short of people looking to offer advice.

When I got married a couple of years ago, the chap who owned the venue at which we celebrated was one of a kind. His name was “Lucky”, he never wore shoes and he had the kind of demeanour that suggested he should be on a surfboard on the south coast, not managing a converted mill in deepest South-East London.

Holiday letting is the subject of some of the most alarming complaints I receive. One person told me how she found herself on vacation staying with a great-grandmother who wouldn’t leave the flat (and 12 cats) while another found that her host treated cleaning more as a vague concept than a necessity.

There is never really a good time to talk about dying and what happens to your money and assets when you’re gone.

If you’ve managed to escape the daily grind and get away, or if you’ve got a holiday booked soon, you’ll know how important it is to have a good travel insurance policy.

One in seven UK homeowners say they will still be paying off their mortgage at the age of 70, according to a survey.

Few industries have grown more in status and stridency than investor protection. The edicts of the regulatory agencies pour forth, along with voluminous “must read” documents to be noted, acted on and kept on file. But despite their aura of authority and infallibility, how reliable are they? Can they be trusted as an informed assessment of risk for private investors, fund managers, analysts and independent financial advisers?

You think you’ve found the perfect outfit, only to find that you can hardly squeeze into the size you picked – or, equally annoyingly, it completely swamps your frame.'